The phone call left me unsettled. I value clinical supervision with school counselling interns, and talking with students about their cases is usually energizing and uplifting. But this conversation troubled me and settled heavily with me. It still does.
My student called me seeking supervision for her work with a gender non-binary youth. As an Associate Director in an online program, I work with students in many locations across Canada. While my student described the situation she was handling, my responses came easily at first. We spoke about relational safety, non-judgmental language, and the importance of trust. These foundational counselling principles, embedded in training and professional ethics, tend to surface automatically. Our non-binary clients, especially, benefit from a relational approach that respects their autonomy. But then she reminded me of where she was practicing.
Recent provincial policy changes in her jurisdiction had placed restrictions on the use of students’ chosen names and pronouns at school. Guidance I would normally offer around client autonomy now carried potential professional consequences for her. So we slowed down. We shifted to discussing potential consequences for both the student and the intern in different scenarios. We talked about consultation, documentation, and the emotional weight of practicing under these constraints. While the ethical principles that provide the foundation for counselling have remained steady, the environment has not.
That conversation has stayed with me because it reflects what many school counsellors across Canada are now navigating. The work is familiar, but school conditions are different. Across the country, conversations about gender diversity in schools have become increasingly polarized. For school counsellors, these debates move quickly from public discourse into daily practice. They surface in counselling offices, staff meetings, parent emails, and moments where counsellors must weigh professional judgment against institutional expectations.
Public discussions often frame gender diversity as a policy or political issue. In counselling spaces, these issues show up as something far more pressing. Non-binary students often arrive in our offices with significant fear and vulnerability. Counsellors are expected to respond with clinical judgment, ethical care, and integrity while navigating policies that may be shifting, unclear, or misaligned with professional ethics.
To add to the complexity of the issue, Canada is not a single context. Provincial policies and school board directives vary widely. What is framed as responsible practice in one jurisdiction may be constrained in another. As a result, school counsellors increasingly practice with an awareness that similar clinical decisions are being judged differently across provinces, which shapes how we navigate ethical responsibility and employment conditions in our own setting. This tension creates what might best be described as a shadow war over ethical care. It plays out in counselling offices, supervision conversations, and case documentation, in the space between what counsellors understand to be clinically appropriate and what institutions authorize.
Counsellors are advocates, and this applies to school counsellors as well. Within the profession, this is a settled understanding. Our advocacy is embedded in ethical standards, training expectations, and the historical role of school counselling in Canada (Surette, 2019). It takes the form of promoting student wellbeing, dignity, and safety, particularly when students are vulnerable. Advocacy also requires intentionality. It asks counsellors to examine their values and reflect on why they chose this profession. Ethical decision-making matters most in situations like this, when decisions are uncomfortable and there is no obvious safe option. Advocacy in school settings requires judgment. Counsellors work within institutional systems, and those systems shape what is possible. Still, ethical responsibility does not disappear because a policy exists. When counsellors center dignity and care, we are making professional decisions, even when those decisions are constrained.
In recent years, some provincial policies have placed school counsellors in positions where institutional directives and professional ethics sit in tension. Counselling codes emphasize respect for dignity, responsible caring, and the importance of trust and confidentiality (Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association [CCPA], 2020). When policies interfere with these principles, counsellors experience ethical strain that affects clinical judgment, relational trust, and professional identity.
Schools have long been described as contested spaces impacted by competing claims about parental authority, student rights, and institutional responsibility (Herriot et al., 2018). Increasingly, the responsibility for navigating these tensions falls to school counsellors, often without clear guidance or consistent institutional support. Policy analyses show that approaches to gender diversity in schools vary substantially across jurisdictions and are shaped by local interpretation and implementation (Omercajic, 2020). Legal challenges have added further complexity. In late 2025, the Supreme Court of Canada agreed to hear a challenge to Saskatchewan’s school pronoun legislation, centered on parental consent requirements and the use of the notwithstanding clause (Simes, 2025). Reporting on Alberta’s pronoun policies has similarly highlighted concerns from educators and professional associations about potential impacts on student trust and the position of school-based helping professionals (Sousa, 2025).
For counsellors, these developments translate into professional decisions about language, documentation, consultation, and disclosure, and each decision carries professional and relational consequences.
In this context, professional ethics function as a working guide. Across Canada, counsellors are oriented by commitments to dignity, client autonomy, responsible caring, and the avoidance of harm (CCPA, 2020). These commitments provide continuity when policies shift or guidance remains unclear. Ethical practice, however, does not guarantee institutional safety, and acting with integrity can involve professional risk. School counsellors may find themselves navigating between compliance and responsiveness, discretion and visibility, self-protection and student care.
This is also where internal reflection becomes essential. Policies can shape behavior, but they cannot replace professional judgment. Each counsellor must decide what they are willing to stand behind, what they are prepared to document, and what they could reasonably defend if questioned. Without that reflection, decisions can default to convenience rather than care.
A developmentally informed approach remains essential when working with gender-diverse and questioning students. Adolescence involves exploration and identity development, and these processes require support, patience, and responsiveness. Qualitative research with transgender and gender-diverse youth highlights the importance of time, relational safety, and supportive exploration in meaning-making and coping processes (Tyni et al., 2024). Clinical guidance emphasizes affirming care that is respectful, responsive, and attentive to the young person’s needs, without assuming fixed outcomes or timelines (Vandermorris & Metzger, 2023).
In practice, counselling gender-diverse youth looks much like competent counselling in any other context. It centers active listening and careful attention to distress, functioning, and coping. This work reflects established professional standards. Research with transgender and nonbinary youth in Canadian contexts shows that perceived support from adults and institutions is associated with better mental health outcomes and wellbeing (London-Nadeau et al., 2023). When counsellors are constrained by politically motivated policies, clinical and ethical judgment is compromised, and clients are negatively impacted.
Concerns about complaints, misinterpretation, or public scrutiny now shape how many of us approach conversations related to gender diversity. Ethical clarity, consultation, and careful documentation support responsible practice and reflect ethical commitments in their own right (CCPA, 2021), but even with these safeguards, counsellors continue to navigate tension between ethical care and institutional constraint. Ultimately, school counsellors must decide how they will practice, knowing the risks, and professional ethics do not remove that responsibility. They offer a framework for principled decision-making. Many policies meet legal thresholds while leaving ethical questions unresolved. This tension is at the heart of the shadow war over ethical care.
Ethical advocacy in today’s schools is deliberate, careful, and relational. It shows up in thoughtful listening, measured language, and intentional decisions. It also requires backbone.
School counsellors across Canada are navigating uneven and, at times, ethically compromised terrain. Yet the core of the work remains unchanged. Supporting students with care, integrity, professional judgment, and advocacy continues to matter. This advocacy may involve choosing ethical care when political responses prioritize populist appeal over evidence-informed practice. In the current climate, that choice deserves recognition for what it is: ethical practice under pressure.
Lisa Porter, CCC, former school counsellor, current Associate Director at City University M.Ed. School Counselling program
References
Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association. (2020). Code of ethics.
https://www.ccpa-accp.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/CCPA-2020-Code-of-Ethics-E-Book-EN.pdf
Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association. (2021). Standards of practice (6th ed.).
https://www.ccpa-accp.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/CCPA-Standards-of-Practice-ENG-Sept-29-Web-file.pdf
Herriot, L., Burns, D. P., & Yeung, B. (2018). Contested spaces: Trans-inclusive school policies and parental sovereignty in Canada. Gender and Education, 30(6), 695–714.
https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2017.1396291
London-Nadeau, K., Chadi, N., Taylor, A. B., Chan, A. Y. F., Sansfaçon, A. P., Chiniara, L., Lefebvre, C., & Saewyc, E. M. (2023). Social support and mental health among transgender and nonbinary youth in Quebec. LGBT Health, 10(4), 306–314.
https://doi.org/10.1089/lgbt.2022.0156
Omercajic, K. (2020). Supporting transgender inclusion and gender diversity in schools: A critical policy analysis. Frontiers in Sociology, 5, Article 27.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2020.00027
Simes, J. (2025, November 6). Supreme Court agrees to weigh in on Saskatchewan’s school pronoun case. CityNews. https://halifax.citynews.ca/2025/11/06/supreme-court-to-decide-whether-it-will-weigh-in-on-saskatchewans-school-pronoun-law/
Sousa, A. (2025, November 19). Alberta teachers claim new pronoun policy jeopardizes relationship with students. Global News. https://globalnews.ca/news/11533510/pronoun-policy-alberta-teachers-notwithstanding-clause/
Surette, T. E. (2019). Interrupting institutional heteronormativity: School counsellors’ role in advocating for gender and sexually diverse students. Canadian Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy, 53(4).
https://cjc-rcc.ucalgary.ca/article/view/61261
Tyni, K., Wurm, M., Nordström, T., & Bratt, A. S. (2024). A systematic review and qualitative research synthesis of the lived experiences and coping of transgender and gender-diverse youth 18 years or younger. International Journal of Transgender Health, 25(3), 352–388.
https://doi.org/10.1080/26895269.2023.2295379
Vandermorris, A., & Metzger, D. L. (2023). An affirming approach to caring for transgender and gender-diverse youth. Paediatrics & Child Health, 28(7), 437–448.
https://doi.org/10.1093/pch/pxad045
